Friendship Breakups

We’ve all seen the image somewhere online that says something like “friendships breakups are worse than romantic breakups”, and we’ve all seen how many people relate to it.Almost everyone has lost a friend, some have lost more than a few. The reasons for this abrupt end to a friendship might be a bit unclear but the pain behind it never is. Why is this so? Why so friendship breakups hurt so much more than romantic breakups?When you enter into a relationship, in the back of your mind you know it might not work out. You’re slow to become comfortable and close to the person you’re with. It takes a while for you to be vulnerable with them.

With friendships, everything is out there from the start. You don’t start a friendship expecting it to end. You show your true colors from the beginning, allowing yourself to become vulnerable and comfortable with your new best friend.


When romantic relationships end, your friends are there to comfort you. When a friendship ends, nobody can comfort you the same way your ex-friend would have.

With friends, you tend to let them into your life much, much faster. There isn’t any expectations or reasons why not to share something with them. They’re able to get closer to you, to your pets, to your family, much quicker. You tell them all your secrets and your hopes and your dreams, and when they’re gone it’s literally like a piece of you has detached.

Friends are family you can choose. There’s no obligation to love and support them; you do it because you want to. When the friend is gone all of a sudden, it’s earth-shatteringly painful to you and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Friends are infinitely more important than romantic partners. This is something I will always believe, especially after losing a few friends and feeling the pain of it.

Nothing is ever the sane when one day you have someone who will love and support you through anything and the next day they’re gone.

E-Book Textbooks

Exam season! The time for stress, anxiety, and sleeplessness. I’ve got to start studying this weekend so I had to lug all of my textbooks home. My teachers were so shocked at the weight of my bag, as if each textbook doesn’t weigh a ton.

I understand the need for textbooks, okay? I know they’re important, and I understand why they’re so heavy. We have so much stuff to learn they couldn’t possibly make a textbook that isn’t heavy, unless the writing is miniscule.

Of course, publishers could print multiple volumes of a textbook, but that just becomes cumbersome and adds unneeded responsibility on the student.

Rather, the solution should be ebooks.

At enrollment, parents can choose whether they want to pay for all the needed textbooks in print or in e-book version.

The school could provide students with e-readers instead of iPads or similar tablets to minimize unwanted, distracting activity. Or, the student could bring their own e-reader if they already have one.

The school would still make money from selling e-readers and e-books, albeit a little bit less. Families would save a lot of money on unnescearily expensive textbooks. Students would be spared the agony of carting textbooks to and from school and classes. Most of all, it’s much more environmentally friendly.

Many schools in my area have started transitioning to e-books. They atarted with one or two at first, but eventually just transferred all the books.

My school is a little less progressive. We still use regular old paper and ink. If a student manages to find an online version of the textbook, he or she is allowed to bring their iPad to class, but the school does not sell e-books.

This is slightly better than schools where the only thing they’re allowed to use is the textbook administered by the school.

But why not move over to e-books? They’re much more affordable, they’re portable, students are able to carry all their books at once, etc. The pros greatly outweigh the cons in this case, if you ask me.

Effort and School Projects

I wouldn’t call myself a perfectionist, but I like things done correctly. When I do things, I like to do them right, and I’ll sometimes spend hours on simple tasks just to do them as well as I can.

As a result, I can turn in projects that I spent hours on. They’re neat and well organized and extremely creative. But nobody grades you on how pretty your work is, just on whether all the information you need to know is shown in your project.

Admittedly, this is a fault of the education system, the system that seeks to drain us of all individuality and creativity.

I’ve found that it is easier to do a simple Powerpoint presentation that takes me 20 minutes and contains all the information the teacher asks for than to go all out on a project that ends up being completely stunning.

In the end, whether I do a 20-minute Powerpoint or a 3D model of a cell, I can only get a certain grade, and I’ll only get this grade if I have all the information the teacher asks for.

Creativity in school work is not valued. When I was a kid, teachers would award one or two marks for creativity, but this gradually slowed to a stop.

photo-1452860606245-08befc0ff44bThe saddest thing is that it’s fun for me to do school projects where I get to do something out of the box that nobody would expect. I love thinking up new ways to approach a problem and display my results.

But it’s just not worth the extra effort. I could spend that time studying for a test I absolutely need to pass or spending time with my family.

If I were guaranteed recognition and rewards for my work, I’d gladly put in the effort. Every project would be like my life’s work. But I don’t and so it’s not.